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Topic: feeding milk (Read 4390 times)

Would it be good or even OK to feed milk products to bees in order to get acidophilus or lactobacillus into bees to help them fight cereana?Milk or whey fed to poultry will prevent or cure cocidiosis a bloody stomach problem in young chickensBullship

I've mixed probiotic capsules into sugar syrup before. (1 capsule per 5 gallons) I don't know if it helped the bees or not, but I felt better doing it. IIRC, Dennis Murrell found that his bees grew in strength faster if he sprayed some kombucha probiotic juice on the bees.

You could also identify a good strong hive, and remove a frame of pollen from it and give to a weaker hive. The frame of pollen will have the good bacteria the healthy hive has if you want to give the bees natural strains of beneficial bacteria.

>You could also identify a good strong hive, and remove a frame of pollen from it and give to a weaker hive. The frame of pollen will have the good bacteria the healthy hive has if you want to give the bees natural strains of beneficial bacteria.

I often wonder how often "boosting" a colony with frames from a strong colony actually works because of the microbes rather than the bees or resources...

You could also identify a good strong hive, and remove a frame of pollen from it and give to a weaker hive. The frame of pollen will have the good bacteria the healthy hive has if you want to give the bees natural strains of beneficial bacteria.

That bacteria story goes over imagination. First time I ever hear.

But if you give a frame of emerging bees to the wearker colony, it surely boosts.

.Milk is not bees food. Scimmed milk has 50% lactose and bees cannot use that sugar.Milk is medicine either.

And it seems that it's not a very good "people food" either...

Depends on the person. Some people handle milk very well, for others it is a curse. The same is true of wheat, peanuts, shrimp, cabbage, etc.

I think that feeding bees corn syrup can have negative effects - it is inferior to the natural diet of bees, it is a processed food, it is calorie rich but poor in other nutrients (ie, a 'junk' food). In a pinch, it is better than starving, but is not generally good.

I can remember how corn syrup was a NO, NO as bee food before 1980 or there abouts. Bees, at that time, did not respond to it at all favorably. Only slightly better than starvation itself. Most often, favorable weather, winter, would save them - not syrup! But, like everything else being forced on them, they had no choice but to adapt, to a certain degree, but syrup is still giving them trouble and what not. (Although most will not agree with this. They might even produce some paper to bolster their claim to the plus side?)But, as anything else, the bad was fast pushed in the dark corner when beeks discovered that it was much cheaper getting syrup, especialy if bought in truck-loads and no mixing and all that stuff, which further reduced labour, therefor cost... But, as of late the staff is simply found in honey jars all over the world and the issue has taken yet another turn...As all else that pertains to bees, all is crafted to the mould that best fits beekeeper and not bees. I suppose they have no choice but to consume it, even though it most often does them more harm than good? Plain cane sugar is still the most suitable emergency feed... feed in a pinch as it were.

But, to feed them them milk? Well, it is sure a strange world out there in God know what else we are encounter? I for one get info of all sorts of weird stuf and concoctions that are feed to the bee in Europe, out of all places.

Feeding them a little bit of milk I'm sure probably wouldn't hurt, although how much it would help would be in question. Keep in mind that chickens and bees are just different enough that any benefits would be in question.

As to the outrage of feeding the bees anything but pure flower nectar and pure flower pollen...well..the bees collect bird seed, wood shaving dust, corn dust, putrid water, maple sap, and a whole host of things that we probably wouldn't consider adding to the hives. Milk is fairly benign compared to some of those.

There are lots of things people do or don't do and they all anecdotally work miracles. So go ahead and give it a try...but if your bees don't have any issues, they may just stay healthy and not from the milk...

The bee gets its calories from sugar or from honey and other nutrietients it gets from pollen. This is knowledge, not thinking.

No, that is not clear at all. Nectar and honey have nutrients that are not present in refined sugars and are not present in pollen.

For example, nectar is rich in certain flavonoids, and these have a wide variety of effects on animal metabolism. No one knows what effect they have on bees, but humans that eat a flavonoid poor diet are more prone to many diseases.

Another example: nectar is rich in volatile organic compounds like geraniol, nerolic acid and citral. These compounds are used as various pheromones and semiotic chemicals produced by the bees. The article below shows that geraniol and nerolic acid confuse varroa mites and reduces their ability to seek out prey in a hive... part of the strategy of varroa mites is to go after newly hatched brood and nurse bees, and natural nectar works against that while sugar does not.

Nutritionists once thought that they could easily synthesize an infant formula that is equal to a mother's milk. They pretended it was only about the amount of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. That is simply not true - early formulas were very detrimental to the development of infants. Todays infant formulas are more sophisticated and less damaging, but they do not contain the protective antibodies and other valuable things found in mothers milk. The more we look into nutrition, the more complex it becomes. Yes, calories and protein are important, but it is wrong to reduce everything to such simple terms.

No, that is not clear at all. Nectar and honey have nutrients that are not present in refined sugars and For example, nectar is rich in certain flavonoids, and these have a wide variety of effects on animal metabolism. No one knows what effect they have on bees, but humans that eat a flavonoid poor diet are more prone to many diseases. .

I have read researches in internet which seems to be practical. For instance it is said that vitamins are important but nowhere is said what vitamin and and how much.

Yes, I agree, knowledge about bee nutrition is rather limited. Which is why one should not think that pure sugar or HFCS can be substituted for nectar with no negative effects - there is no evidence, and it is illogical. Bees evolved over millions of years to consume a mix of different nectars. Switching them to a less complex, less natural diet cannot be assumed to be in the interest of bee health. Feeding sugar is better than letting the bees starve to death, but when it becomes a frequent practice, it is empty calories, or bee junk food.

The article I linked to shows that compounds in nectar interfere in some ways with varroa mites. We also see beeks using essential oils with these same compounds to 'doctor' a hive ... yet when bees rely on nectar instead of sugar, they are able to nurse themselves to a degree.

That 'feeling' informed by hundreds of other examples of where humans 'knew' they understood the situation and 'knew' they could do better. Not calling it death, rather, sub-prime health.

Kool-Aid vs Hibiscus tea. Because red dye #2 is just as good for kids as the red anthocyanin pigments.

Candy instead of fruit.

Mother's milk versus synthetic formula.

Feeding cows grain instead of grass (cows evolved to eat grass, feeding grain requires far more antibiotics, then the meat is loaded with inflammatory oils and devoid of anti-inflammatory omega-3s).

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What bees do not do, it to tickle cows tits and drink milk.

Except for ant-cows (aphids). And that isn't the aphid's tit that bees feed from, it is another anatomical feature. :-X

Milk is no more artificial for a bee than feeding them soy protein or yeast cake - like refined sugar, these are all things they don't normally find in nature, their metabolism was not optimized for that diet. If they have no pollen stores, yes, this will keep them from dying off from protein deficiency ... but you are letting your feelings show by declaring milk to be un-natural while you also equate sugar with honey. Why bother to sell real honey to people? Just give them a sugar syrup with some yellow color and a bit of artificial flavor - isn't that the same? ___

Other 'feelings' ....

We move bees across the country and from continent to continent, and then are surprised that parasites and diseases spread so rapidly.

We force bees to form larger comb cells than they want to (on the theory that a bigger bee is a better bee) but have no evidence that this makes a bee healthier, we ignore the evidence that this makes it easier for mites to breed in the comb.

We often leave the bees with less food than they need, and then we declare that the substitutes that we provide are just as good (with no real evidence of that).

Yes, calories and protein are important, but it is wrong to reduce everything to such simple terms.

It is wrong for all livestock but I don't see big Ag changing their ways in the near future for those that are not willing to pay a premium price for livestock to be raised naturally.

So? You are confusing two distinct questions. Big ag wants to sell every pesticide they can dream up, and they don't care if it wipes out your bees or gives you cancer ten years down the road. As long as it cannot be traced to them, it sounds like a good plan. Their schemes are entirely separate from questions of health or what is right.